Group Stages – Round 1: O Fantasma (POR) vs BYE (PRK)

by Nicholas Robinson

The first half: Young and handsome, Sergio (Ricardo Meneses) works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. He can’t force himself to connect with his pretty female co-worker Fatima (Beatriz Torcato), who displays an avid interest in him, so instead Sergio roams the city with the trash company’s pet dog. Eventually Sergio becomes fascinated with a sleek motorcycle, and then also its arrogant owner – a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. The frustrated trash collector’s surfacing desires unleash his darkest impulses, sending him down a dangerous path of violence, depravity and degradation. – IMDB.com

Once again, I apologize for the extreme lateness of this article. But enough of that, let’s get to the meat of the matter. This movie was bad. This movie was horribly bad. There was no story, the acting was horrible and there was no real dialogue (and not in the good way either).

Like I said there was no story. I saw a dude collect garbage and then have a random conversation with some girl. Then he starts roaming the streets of Lisbon, which I assume is the point of this movie, but NOTHING HAPPENS. It felt like an excuse for dudes to have sex with each other. To prove my point, in the first twenty minutes, he finds some guy tied up in the back of a car. Does he try to help him? No. He looks at him for a little bit and then proceeds to unbuckle his pants and jerk the tied-up guy off. He then re-buckles the dude’s pants and walks off, not even untying him. That is just plain rubbish.

Like I said, the acting was horrible all around. There were no expressions from anyone, just plain old face. It felt like they were people who thought that acting was just reading lines off a piece of paper, and found a movie where they don’t even do that!

Overall, there is nothing good about this movie. It is ninety minutes of my life that I want back.